All Thanks To Al
by sarahyyy
Summary: Scorpius lacks the courage to tell Rose that he loves her. Albus decides to help out. Rose is in hiding. Whatever will Scorpius do?


**"All Thanks To Al"**

**Disclaimer: **Since when have I owned?

**A/N: **This was written for elsiey at LiveJournal for the smrwfiacfest. Multiple POVs, so it might get a little confusing! Leave me reviews! They keep me alive.

* * *

"Rosie! Rosie!" Albus Severus Potter, more so fondly known to all as 'Al', shouted as he rushed through the great oak doors to the Great Hall. Every student turned in their seats to stare at him.

When Al finally realised that Rose wasn't in the Great hall, he flung a charming smile at a nearby first year Gryffindor. Leaning against the benches to catch some breath, he asked, "Have you, perhaps, seen Rose Weasley today?"

The nervous little girl shook her head, "N-no."

Al shook his head and straightened up, "Has anyone seen Rose Weasley at all today?"

"Hufflepuff has the pitch today!" A third year Hufflepuff near Al informed him.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Al grabbed a roll, stuffed it into his mouth and started running again.

* * *

"Hey, Rosie!" Al had finally reached the Quidditch pitch and spotted his cousin. "Rosie, get down here right now!"

"Potter," started the over-zealous Hufflepuff captain, William Summerby, "let's clarify a few things. Number one, we have the pitch now. Two, we are practicing. Three, we don't want you to stand there stealing all our plays. And last, we have a match against Ravenclaw next week and we need to kick their asses. So would it be possible for you to get your arse off this field now?" he snapped irritably, showing his vulnerability to paranoia.

"No, can't do. It's urgent. I have to speak to Rose now." Al's hard look convinced the Quidditch Captain and he relented.

"Alright team, take five. Rose, I want you to be back as soon as humanly possible. You got me?"

Rose just flashed him a smile, "Gotcha."

Once Rose landed from the air, Al pulled her into the Quidditch shed and locked the door, casting silencing spells at the same time. "Good," he declared after concluding that no one was spying on them.

While he was doing this, Rose just leaned against the wall, a small grin on her face paired with a roll of her eye. "What is it, Al?"

He turned around to face her and said simply, "Scorpius is in love with you."

She blinked rapidly, trying to process the information, however ridiculous it may be. And then her mouth dropped.

"I just figured it out last night, actually. I should have known earlier. Those looks that he gives you when you're not looking-"

"There was something on my face." She interrupted smoothly.

"-_all the time_, if I may add. That weird, twisted smile that he reserves only for you-"

"His smiles are _not _twisted!" She retorted, though a light blush had crept up her cheeks.

"-you defend him and vice versa, even when I was only joking. The way he always goes 'Rose would like this' and 'Rose hates that' and 'If Rose were here'... You get my drift. He's _always _talking about you."

"No he does not. We're friends, Al, best mates! I'd bet he talks about you as much too. Because he feels the same way about me as he would you!"

"I would hope not," Al started with a disgusted look on his face, "because that would mean that Scorpius is bisexual."

"Oh for Helga's sake, Albus Severus," Rose said, enjoying the way his name made him grimace, "Scorpius is not in love with me, not before, not now, and certainly not ever."

Al snorted, "You don't believe me then."

"Damn straight I don't believe you. I'm telling you now that the day Scorpius falls in love with me is the day Professor Longbottom burns down his precious greenhouse." She said resolutely, a small smirk gracing her face.

Just as Al was about to retort, William shouted from outside, "Hey you two, get out of there already! Practice is cancelled; Professor Longbottom accidentally set Greenhouse Number Two on fire. We have to help out!"

Rose's look of pure horror was priceless.

When Al opened the door to face a furious Hufflepuff Captain (who was no doubt going into lecture mode about how practices shouldn't be interrupted for any reason at all), his body practically shaking with his laughter, "Oh we'll see, Rosie. We'll see."

* * *

Ever since her cousin mentioned the possibility of Scorpius being in love with her, Rose decided that she should stay away from the both of them for a while.

_Not _because she was afraid, of course not. She might not have been a Gryffindor (she was the first in her family to be sorted in anywhere _but _Gryffindor actually and she was quite proud of it) but both her parents were and _surely _she must have inherited something from them. And she must have been influenced by one of her Gryffindor uncles and aunties, no?

But ah, where was she?

Oh yes, she was not scared. That was because Scorpius wasn't in love with her. She was sure of that.

He was Scorpius for Harry Potter's sake! Her best mate since first year! How could he love her? The pure thought of it was unthinkable.

But she couldn't help but to think of what it'd be like if she and Scorpius were a couple. Would they still be best friends? Or would they just move to a new level entirely? What would his kisses feel li-

_NO! Bad, Rosie, bad!_

She took a deep breath. It was just the shock that was muddling up her mind. Scorpius did not love her, nor did she want him to. They were brilliant as best friends. End of story.

With that thought in her mind, her heart was slightly lighter. Using all the shortcuts she knew of, she rushed back into the Hufflepuff common room, her safe haven where Al and Scorpius could never get her.

Or so she thought...

* * *

"Say Alice," Al said as he leaned against the wall outside the entrance of the Hufflepuff common room, "Nice weather we're having now, right?"

When Alice Longbottom turned towards him and was ready to reply when Al suddenly flashed her one of his brightest smiles.

In all her years she had only seen Albus Severus Potter smile like that to a) his mother; b) Rose or Lily when he needed a favour; and c) Professor McGonagall when he wanted to get out of detention. And seeing that she wasn't included in any of the above mentioned categories, she immediately became flustered. "Oh yes, definitely. Good weather. Yes, Albus you're right. Good weather."

Albus licked his lips to suppress his chuckle.

Alice had to smother her urge to giggle.

"Call me Al, please. Alice, I was wondering..." His look turned somewhat intense and Alice inwardly swooned, "If you, my dear Alice, could possibly do me a favour."

"Yes! I mean, yes, of course. Anything you need, _Al_."

If he had asked her to jump down from the Astronomy Tower, she would have said yes. If he had asked her to snog their disgustingly disturbing DADA teacher, Professor Higgs, she would have said yes.

All because he had called her "his dear Alice".

"Excellent." Albus said with a grin. "Now, what is the password to the Hufflepuff common room again?"

"Oh that. It's 'the yellow submarine'." Alice blurted out, pleased that she was able to help Al out.

After another twenty minutes or so of flirting, Alice left for the library with a giddy look on her face. Al, on the other hand, was armed with the Hufflepuff common room password.

'_I am such a lady killer.'_ Al thought to himself with a satisfied smirk.

* * *

Scorpius Malfoy was a very confused young man.

For the past two days or so, two of his best friends were hardly seen. It was as if they had just suddenly disappeared.

Fair enough when Rose mumbled that she was busy studying for her Arithmancy test when he stopped her from (what it looked like to him) trying to sneak behind a tree near the lake, but when Albus too claimed that he was studying for Arithmancy... That was definitely out of the question.

For one, when did Albus ever study?

And even if he did, since when did he take _Arithmancy_?

From all those two incidents, Scorpius could very well deduce that both his best mates were avoiding him.

Now that thought had gotten Scorpius quite concerned. He had never been the one to have many friends. In fact, the number of friends he had could easily be counted on one hand. There was Albus, Rose and Optimus Zabini. That was it.

And now two of his friends had suddenly..._vanished_.

Never mind that they were all in different houses -he in Slytherin, Albus in Gryffindor and Rose in Hufflepuff- they had always found time to spend with each other. Be it during meals or study sessions (more often than not, it was Rose and him that were studying, Albus would always be the one to ask 'are we done yet?'), they had always had fun together.

So what was wrong now?

He hadn't insulted the Chudley Canons in front of Albus, he was paying full attention when Rose was reading "Harry Potter and The Power of DADA" to him and he was sure that he hadn't said anyt-

_Oh bloody bearded mermaids. _

He did. The wispy memory of him, under the influence of Veritaserum (which they smuggled from Professor Thomas' potions supply), telling Albus that he was in love with Rose when they were playing Truth and Dare dropped from the sky and punched him in the face.

Scorpius blinked twice slowly. Albus probably thought that he was trying to take advantage on Rose (even though he hadn't even told her yet) and if his estimations were correct, Rose knew too now and thought that he was a freak.

Oh Merlin help him.

* * *

Rose Weasley awoke on a wonderful Saturday morning to fresh spring air, the sound of birds chirping, a bouquet of roses on her table, two snoring room mates-

Wait a minute... Since when did she furnish her table with roses?

She swung her legs down the bed and sat up. Reaching over to the roses -yellow, her favourite colour not just because of house pride, but simply because she liked being sunny-, her lips twitched up into an involuntary small smile.

But her smile turned into a glare when the roses started chanting once she touched it:

"_Roses are red,_

_Violets are blue._

_I chose yellow_

_Because it suits you._

_Roses have thorns,_

_Scorpions do too._

_When are you going to realise_

_That Scorpius loves you?"_

"Albus Severus Potter, you're a dead man." She growled as she flung the letter on her bed. Her room mates sensibly decided not to question the roses or the rhyme.

* * *

Meanwhile, Al was still making some last minute finishing to Plan B in the library.

When Rose came into the Great Hall, fuming mad, demanding to know where he was, he found that Plan A was not quite working very well on her and decided that it would be wise to hide underneath the Gryffindor table.

Not quite Gryffindor-ish of him, but he would rather be safe from any hexes that Rose might have threw at him should she find him.

He would also have to send his Uncle George a letter, informing him that the roses didn't exactly please Rose and to ask for new ideas.

He had decided to work on Rose and Scorpius' budding relationship from another angle -Scorpius' side, to be precise- and he could only hope that Scorpius would take to it better. He had an inkling suspicion that Plan B would drive Rose crazy if he had tried it out on her, though if he were ever confronted, he would put all the blame to his almost-cousin Teddy who had so kindly provided him with the plan.

"Mr. Potter, it would do you good to wipe that evil look off your face. And your face looks like it's going to split at the rate your smirk is growing." Madam Pince who was never one to mince words (especially not when it came to him), advised.

Al just gave her a little salute and a mock, "Yes, Madam. Your wish is my command."

* * *

When Scorpius walked into the library, he was hoping for some peace and quite to finish his Potions essay on the Polyjuice Potion. But all he got was...

Rose.

Everywhere.

On every table, she was sitting there in different clothes. And the seat where Madam Pince normally sat was occupied by her too.

"Mr. Malfoy, back again so soon?" Madam Pince like Rose asked him.

He nodded weakly, "I need some...Potions reference books."

Madam Pince like Rose gave him a toothy smile and waved him away.

Scorpius all but ran in the direction of the Potions area. And there, he started pacing.

It must be his infatuation with Rose that had caused this. It must be. How could he have possibly seen Rose when he was looking at Madam Pince? That was ridiculous. Impossible, really.

Having calmed down a little, he sat his book bag on the table and started to write his essay.

After a while, he stood up to grab a book from the shelves. That was when he realised that something was wrong with them too.

"Most Potente Roses", "A Wizard's Guide to Rose", "Handbook of Most Rosy Potions" and etcetera stared back at him.

"You have got to be kidding me." He mumbled to himself and decided that he was better off without the books.

When he got back to his essay, he found even in his writings he was obsessed with her.

_The Poly Rose Potion transforms a person to look like Rose Weasley. One Rose does one Scorpius, but Rose can only belong to me because I am not going to share her with anyone else. When Poly Rose Potion is used, there is apparently no way to verify the user's identity unless the user is Rose and Rose is kissed by me because I want to kiss her so much. _

He blushed a little, but continued reading.

_Poly Rose Potion can be used for cross-gender transformations. The most common example of cases relating to it is the changing of Rose Weasley to Rose Malfoy in a few years when she marries me- _

Scorpius gaped at the parchment for a drawn out moment before promptly fainted, his head falling onto his parchment.

Had he not fainted, he would have heard Al chuckling, while muttering 'finite incantatem' under the invisibility cloak that James had just owled over just this morning.

* * *

Rose was still searching for Albus.

By now, thanks to her two amazingly thick-headed room mates, the whole of Hogwarts were roaring with rumours of Scorpius and her being together.

When she finally found Al, she was going to have him hanged, quartered and drawn. Call her a sadist, but if she were going to kill anyone, she would rather see them die in the gruesome, muggle way.

But now...where could he be?

As if on cue, Al ran up to her from her back and slung an arm over her shoulders, "How's my favourite cousin today?"

"One word for you Albus Severus Potter: run."

And he did run...

For the library, that is.

* * *

As he was running, his breath was raspingin his chest. Even during his Quidditch practises he didn't have to spend so much energy on running. He gritted his teeth and thought, _'Must get Rose to library. Must make Scorpius tell her. Must get them together."_

He took a sharp turn to the right suddenly as he recalled the shortcut on the Marauders' Map that James had so kindly given to him once he finished his seventh year.

She ran after him, growling and yelling profanities that would have made his Uncle Ron proud and his Aunt Hermione wince in despair.

He still had another problem to worry about now though. When he left, Scorpius was out cold. Was he up now? He couldn't really run all that distance to get to the library just to have himself cornered and Scorpius on the floor in a dead faint, could he?

He could only pray to Godric and hope that Plan B's scare on Scorpius had given him an extra boost courage wise.

If not...

Well, let's just say that it had to work if Al wanted to keep his life.

* * *

Scorpius regained consciousness a while after Albus left.

Did he dream up the whole thing just because he was too obsessed with Rose? That was not good. He really had to tell her about it.

Not that it would have made much difference, since Albus would have already told her, if not she wouldn't be running away from him at every possible instance. It was actually really aggravating, now that he thought of it.

If she were here right now, he would tell her. Straight out.

He would grab her close to him and then he would tell her how much he loved her and he would then proceed to kiss all sane thoughts out of her mind.

But she wasn't. And he grinned. It was nice to pretend once in a while that he was like one of those courageous and gutsy Gryffindors with a devil-may-care attitu-

"I WILL KILL YOU ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!" A familiar voice roared through the library and in a few milliseconds he found Albus jumping onto the table and crawling across it to duck behind him, using him as a cover.

Rose, predictably, came running towards them with her wand pointed out straight at them. "Scorpius, get out of the way please. I want to kill Albus."

Scorpius felt his lips twist into a large grin and it wasn't long before he was chuckling. It felt good to have his best friends back.

"Stop laughing you dunderhead and tell her you love her!" Albus whispered forcefully and a tad bit urgently in his ear.

He froze and did some mental calculations before deciding that walking over to grab her and kissing her till she told him that she loved him too was not quite a good idea.

But he _did _love her.

And what was a young man in love supposed to do?

He supposed that he could just tell her, but it wouldn't be really romantic. Furthermore, he didn't know how he was going to tell her or how he was supposed to act like.

He didn't even know when he fell in love with her for Salazar's sake!

"Be a man and duel me, Albus Severus." Rose demanded impatiently. When no response came from Albus, she growled his name warningly, "Al..."

"Scorpius!" Albus hissed. "Buck up Scorpius! Just tell her!"

Scorpius licked his lips. It was all or nothing now.

"Rose," he began tentatively and Albus let out a relieved sigh from behind him, "There's something I, uh, need to tell you."

* * *

Albus sighed in total relief. He was saved.

All his hard work was paying out now. Scorpius was going to tell Rose and Rose was going to be really happy and they were going to snog the living daylights out of each other while he escaped Rose's wrath.

If he had known that just by scaring Scorpius and he would have gotten some guts to tell her, he would have done so earlier. But he didn't really know beforehand, though.

Maybe he should consider setting up his own business. "Al the Magnificent Matchmaker" had a nice ring to it.

"-I... Actually... You... Um, why do you want to kill Albus?"

_What?_

* * *

It was Rose's turn to be confused now.

First, Scorpius was acting weird and second, Al had a weird, happy look on his face.

And then instead of changing the topic to save Albus like she had predicted, he had actually asked why she wanted to kill him.

Yes, he was acting weird alright.

"Rumours." She said snappishly. "He's got the whole school thinking you are in love with me now. All thanks to his singing flowers."

"But what if those aren't rumours?" It would have been nice if Scorpius had said it, but instead it came from Albus so it just fuelled Rose's anger.

"I'll teach you to send me stupid singing flowers, Potter." And then she took a step forward, in which Albus instinctively took a step backward, pulling Scorpius along.

* * *

"Albus, I can hold on for ten seconds maximum. Run like the wind, understand?" Scorpius said softly under his breath so that only Albus could hear him.

Albus let out another sigh of relief. It was good to have Scorpius as a friend. He was loyal beyond human comprehension. It would have been nice if he were in Gryffindor too.

"Scorpius?" He asked, his eyes scanning for the nearest exit.

"Hmm?"

"If you were a woman, I would kiss you right now."

"Save it for someone who wants it, Albus." Scorpius said with a snort.

"Are the both of you _ignoring _me?" Rose questioned, her glare poisonous enough to kill.

"Of course not!" The two young men said together, both shaking their head vehemently.

And then Scorpius let out a loud yell of "NOW!" before tackling Rose and watching Albus run for his life.

* * *

It took them a few moments of wrestling before Scorpius had her pinned down on the floor.

And it took another second or two for them to realise the intimacy of their current position - he was on top of her, straddling her while she was underneath him, panting.

Had Albus not been running for his life, he would have laughed.

"Rose?" He asked, his voice a bare murmur. She looked up at him, blushing. He had always loved it when she blushed. Unlike Hugo, her younger brother who had no doubt inherited his "tomato blush" from their father, Rose's blush was just a small tinge of red that couldn't really be seen unless you were looking closely.

His eyes never leaving hers, he instinctively brought his hand to her cheek and softly ran the back of his hand across her cheek, delighting in the fact that his touch could make her blush deeper. Maybe, just maybe, she felt something for him too.

Her panting had ceased quite some time ago, but now her lips were parted. Just a fraction, but it was enough to tempt him. And when her tongue peeked out to wet her lips, he almost lost control.

He leaned down a little so his lips brushed against her ear. He felt her shiver and it somehow boosted his courage. "Would you be really mad if I kissed you now?"

"I'd hex you if you didn't." She replied, though the intended threat was not all that useful seeing that it came out quite breathily.

He grinned before swooping down for a kiss.

And the single thought that was running and replaying through their minds through the kiss was, _'Thank Merlin for Albus!' _


End file.
